S5s in for audition

Dpod4 said:
Great review. I think you captured the essence of this amazing speaker. I am listening to Doobie Brothers - Livin On the Fault Line, via my spiral groove SG 1.1 and Goldfinger statement and the Magico s5 speakers leave nothing on the table while remaining positively musical.

I found your comments on tube amps interesting. I find the Constellation amp brings the most to the party, as if they were made to go together, but my air tight amp brings a spacious and beautiful midrange that can't be beat. And I tried constellation preamp but found Magicos sound best with tube preamps regardless of type of amplification.

I tried your tweak on sitting ears between midrange and tweeter. It brought more resolution but in my room it took away some weight and presence.

You are very right about using laser to get speaker distance and angles just right - they aren't fussy speakers but do pay honor for being locked in for perfect placement.

Finally I appreciate your comparison to panels and electrostatic speakers. My last speakers were magenpans. Magico are only box speakers that deliver the unboxy speed and space and coherency I got from the Maggies but with no grain and a lot more detail and dynamics.

Cheers.

PS. The S5 are the longest standing component in my system. No urge ever to look at anything else.
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Thanks!

I suspect the height adjustment might go hand in hand with toe-in too?

I owned Maggies too back in the past. In fact, I've never been one to change equipment like underwear and can count on two hands, the number of speakers I've owned! (DQ-10s/Magnepan MG3a (heavily modified)/ML Quest/ML reQuest/ML Prodigy/ML Summit and Summit-Xs and now the Magico S5s. So I've been a panel sort of guy for 35 years. Though I've always wondered what a ML midrange combined with Magnepan bass and ribbon tweeter would sound like if properly implemented. ;)
 
Myles - great review! When I owned the s5's, my favorite combo was indeed my VAC phi200's (tube amps). I'm sure the CJ's take that performance up a notch or two.

It sounds like tubes and analog sources are just what the doctor ordered.


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Mike said:
Myles - great review! When I owned the s5's, my favorite combo was indeed my VAC phi200's (tube amps). I'm sure the CJ's take that performance up a notch or two.
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I thought it was a great combo. The speakers really brought out the best qualities of the tube amplifiers eg. a certain reality to the performers. You could just sit and listen for hours yet you could almost immediately hear differences in phono cables, cartridges, etc.

I think what a great solid-state amp brings to the table is low noise floor, better bass and you can get a bigger wattage amp that gives the music a greater sense of ease eg. like what I experienced with the Cello amps. Noise floor is what it's at and when it's reduced, music and especially the sense of space comes to the forefront.

It sounds like tubes and analog sources are just what the doctor ordered.
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That was my basically premise because basically I've only hear digital at shows and dealers with the Magicos. :( (save for one or two years that Alon used tape.) But you know what they say about tape. Once you've heard tape, there's no going back. It's only a gut reaction, but this is one speaker that needs high rez digital because it will really reveal the shortcomings and the resolution ceiling of RBCD.




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Agreed Myles. When I had my s5's, I purposely got a turntable and phonostage for that system....and spun a lot of vinyl. Tubes and vinyl really were great.


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Reading Myle's review was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me in that it was the type of review we used to read years ago and unfortunately, we took that quality of reviewing for granted. Far from being a fluff piece review that is all too common these days, this was a well thought out in-depth review. I felt like I was at Myle's place and was hearing what he was hearing as he was walking us through his recordings.

It takes some self assessment to walk away from your corp beliefs. In the last year, we have seen Myles move away from a lifetime of owning belt drive tables and now owning a DD table. The other core belief that I never thought I would see Myles move away from was his love for electrostats. I understand the love for panel speakers having spent years owning a pair of the original ML Aerius speakers. For Myles to make the switch from a lifetime of owning panel speakers to owning a pair of boxes and cones (but not just any boxes and cones mind you) tells me how special the S5s must be.
 
Great review, Myles. You've summed up really well what I enjoy from the Magicos, in particular the S series: the speed, clarity, and resolution it offers from top to bottom.
 
mep said:
Reading Myle's review was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me in that it was the type of review we used to read years ago and unfortunately, we took that quality of reviewing for granted. Far from being a fluff piece review that is all too common these days, this was a well thought out in-depth review. I felt like I was at Myle's place and was hearing what he was hearing as he was walking us through his recordings.

It takes some self assessment to walk away from your corp beliefs. In the last year, we have seen Myles move away from a lifetime of owning belt drive tables and now owning a DD table. The other core belief that I never thought I would see Myles move away from was his love for electrostats. I understand the love for panel speakers having spent years owning a pair of the original ML Aerius speakers. For Myles to make the switch from a lifetime of owning panel speakers to owning a pair of boxes and cones (but not just any boxes and cones mind you) tells me how special the S5s must be.
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Ditto - well said- I appreciate a soulful heartfelt honest review...and that was one of them for sure.
 
mep said:
Reading Myle's review was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me in that it was the type of review we used to read years ago and unfortunately, we took that quality of reviewing for granted. Far from being a fluff piece review that is all too common these days, this was a well thought out in-depth review. I felt like I was at Myle's place and was hearing what he was hearing as he was walking us through his recordings.

It takes some self assessment to walk away from your corp beliefs. In the last year, we have seen Myles move away from a lifetime of owning belt drive tables and now owning a DD table. The other core belief that I never thought I would see Myles move away from was his love for electrostats. I understand the love for panel speakers having spent years owning a pair of the original ML Aerius speakers. For Myles to make the switch from a lifetime of owning panel speakers to owning a pair of boxes and cones (but not just any boxes and cones mind you) tells me how special the S5s must be.
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I agree, great review, Myles!

When I paid Myles a visit, I remember telling him how great the Q3s were, with SS amps no less! I also would've never taken Myles for a potential Magico fan!

Myles, now that you're "in", you really must try some SS amps there, if anything, just to stratch that itch :)

As for sources, you're all set, with all these tapes and LPs! No need for digital there...

The system, overall, must be sounding great, congrats!


alexandre
 
So what happened to the magnets used to attach the grills? My grills are off and on everyday, so I want to avoid breaking them.
 
If Myles flips over to SS, we better all start looking for other signs that the end is nigh. Myles has already hit on what he knows a SS amp would bring to the table. It is a question of tradeoffs though as you always have to give up something to get something. By switching over to a SS amp, you are certainly going to gain ground in the bottom two octaves with respect to extension, tightness, punch, and definition. It's what you have to give up after the bottom two octaves that causes the dilemma.

The good news is that we are continuing to see tube amps improve in the quality of their bass. I attribute part of this improvement to increased attention being paid to the quality of the power supplies and the amount of joules being stored as well as better output transformers. I also think the new KT-120 and KT-150 tubes are bringing an improved quality to the bottom two octaves of bass as well.
 
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